


The Snap of the Spring

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Banners from the Turrets/The Servant Has No Such Ambition [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Megatron and Starscream have a relationship but no one knows what it is (including them), Read Him For Filth Rung, Smut as a vehicle for characterization, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, i just want to see these messy bitches interact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-20 19:41:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17628470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: For several weeks, Starscream observed as Rung made himself right at home in the Decepticon militia. As if he wasn’t some soft-fingered ivory tower mech, with his fancy laboratory alt—whatever the hell it was—and his cultured little accent and his shiny-bright spark absolutely glittering behind that display case of a spark chamber, like hewantedyou to touch it. Starscream wouldn’t trust Primus himself if the old glitch climbed right out of the well and started handing out alt-exemptions, and he certainly didn’t trust this delicate little headshrink who touched down out of the blue one day and named himself CMO.OrIn a bar in Iacon, a couple of cadets throw an uncooperative psychiatrist onto Megatron’s table and set off a chain reaction that will one day lead to the razing of their entire planet. Let’s say that was the real Rung. Let’s say things went differently.





	The Snap of the Spring

**Author's Note:**

> I know this timeline doesn't really line up with comics lore but look I woke up at 5 am and I couldn't get the idea out of my head. This relies heavily on the idea that Megatron wrote Rung into one of his [pamphlets](https://desdemonafiction.tumblr.com/post/186278743614/an-observation-on-the-tragedy-of-omega-prime) after the encounter in Maccadam's, an idea I talked more about in [The Servant has no Such Ambition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687819) for context.

Starscream lounged on the table of his workshop, one leg crossed over the other, scrolling through his own notes. Megatron had been prodding at blaster prototypes for most of the conversation, and had irritatingly failed thus far to notice that Starscream was being Aloof and Unimpressed with his leader. The prototype wasn’t even that interesting, whereas Starscream himself could have Megatron’s fuel pump ripped out and smashed on the table with only a minimum of effort right now, if he took the notion. He was still considering it.

“Triticalium,” Starscream said, flicking through the data with one claw tip, “several tons of it, actually.”

At that, Megatron actually looked at him for the first time in several minutes, which was gratifying in a way that left a bitter aftertaste all the same. Starscream did _not_ appreciate being tuned out, especially not in his own workshop.

Megatron set down the blaster he’d been examining, “Several _tons,_ Commander?”

Starscream smiled, optics narrowed, letting the bitter edge surface in the corners of his mouth. “If you’d give me decent materials to work with, I’d need less. As it stands, the reinforcements alone—”

Megatron abruptly held up a servo and cut his commander off.

Starscream stopped speaking more out of shock than out of any respect for the gesture. And then, all at once, rage boiled over his processor. “Excuse _you,”_ he started, only to find Megatron had physically twisted away from him, a servo to his comm array, head cocked the way he did when someone who wasn’t Soundwave pinged him with full vocals.

“He’s _here?_ ” Megatron said, stiffening.

“ _Who’s_ here?” Starscream demanded, on the tips of his thrusters trying to lean over Megatron’s shoulder.

“No,” Megatron said into the com, and pushed Starscream away with a hard jab that nearly over-ended him. Starscream stumbled backwards, thrusters gouging the floor.

“-No, I’ll be right there. No. I want to see to it personally. And I want all of you lot to watch your mouths around him, this is a delicate situation and I’ll have the spark of anyone who bungles it for us.”

Starscream steadied himself with one servo against the floor, knee bent, and paused. An arms negotiation? But as second in command, surely Starscream would have gotten word that such a deal was in the works. Things like that don’t just _happen_ without his knowing. He’d always been careful to keep his finger on the fuel pump, politically speaking, even before he was named Second. It _could_ be something he hadn’t heard about, but he generally knew where Megatron was and what he was doing about 90% of the time, and he’d be _very_ surprised, not to mention annoyed, if something so large had slipped through the cracks.

A new recruit? It had been a long time since Megatron met with new recruits in person—those heady, breathless days were long behind. Even _Starscream_ , Air Commander and newly appointed First Officer, hadn’t been received by the mech himself when _he_ joined up. Soundwave had been _his_ liaison, well into the process. It had taken sweat and favors and sheer audacity to get himself to the point where the Scourge of Kaon had taken a second look at him.

Flight frame, too light for the style of brawling that gained gladiatorial types their favor; not a senator like Shockwave, or anybody worth knowing really. Maybe he was just a back alley arms dealer and a two bit street hustler, but he’d toppled his fair share of fresh faces in the rising ranks all the same, and he’d climbed their backs to the top of that shining ladder where the burning spark of the movement waited for him.

And—here he was. At long last.

“Starscream, you’re dismissed,” Megatron said, and set off for the exit without waiting for an answer.

“So I’ll just put in the requisition for the triticalium?” Starscream shouted at the door, which had already slid shut behind Megatron. He pulled the datapad close against his chassis, scowled at the door, and jabbed the _submit_ on his requisition form. He took a minimal amount of joy in the amount of credits he was about to cost his leader. It seemed like he had to push harder and harder these days just to get a moment of undivided attention. The trouble was that if he pushed _too_ hard, the backlash tended to be more attention than he could actually handle, and most of it… with a hard servo.

Presumptuous old tyrant! Starscream ruffled his wings, and then set off after his boss at a swift pace. Who _was_ this oh so very important visitor, clearly more important to Megatron than doing his primus-forsaken _job?_

He stalked through the halls, shadowing the path he assumed Megatron would have taken down to the docking bay, rather than following the general himself. Lately he was feeling— _antsy_. Looking over his shoulder a lot, back-hacking the private logs of the command chain, that sort of thing. More than usual, anyway. He had sweet-talked and backstabbed his way this far, but now that he was here, it…

He didn’t recharge as well anymore. That’s all.

At the bay doors, Starscream pressed against the wall and slunk over to the edge of the entrance. He couldn’t hear anything but the usual whirr of equipment. He poked his head around.

A skinny orange bot, almost certainly scientific class, barely taller than Megatron’s hip, stood in the middle of the hangar. That wasn’t at all what Starscream was expecting. Some kind of two-wheeler? It was hard to tell from here. A _delicate_ thing, with an expressive little face pulled into a kind of wary firmness. Megatron engulfed the bot’s one tiny servo in two of his own, proprietary and possessive. The bot accepted his grip; he didn’t seem fazed by the size of the thing gripping him.

The iron of the hangar door dented under Starscream’s fingers with a faint metallic noise of protest.

The skinny bot looked up. His gaze traveled across the hangar, optics flashing, and leveled his attention directly at Starscream.

Starscream whipped around, back pressed flat to the wall, and then he made a break for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>     My Dear Doctor,
> 
> I find your modesty a persistently charming irritant. You must understand what I say when I tell you that there will _always_ be a place at my side for anyone with your combination of competency and unflinching resolve. Anyone would consider you a prize if they had half the intellect of a sack of rocks. That fact that Cybertron so consistently fails in recognizing this only strengthens my resolve to win your loyalty by whatever means necessary. You would not regret coming to work for me; although we are but humble now, we will soon outstrip the glory of any so-called golden age. I do not think you are a mech of material desires--your thirst, like mine, is for the substance of change, for the labors of your own servo…
> 
>     My Dear Doctor,
> 
> You may say that you are content to let history malign you and the scavengers plagiarize you, but I think we both know you have been ill-treated for the work which you do at great cost to your own health. Yes, I have looked into your history. I am curious to know how you bear such disrespect with such grace...
> 
>     My Dear Doctor,
> 
> I hope this message finds you in good health. What news of Rodion do you have for me this cycle? Lately I have been making my home in the ruins of another great glass city, and I find my thoughts often turning to you. When you said you would consider lending aid to a movement that better aligned with your own morals, I wonder if you meant to imply that a patient who agrees with your ethics is somehow more valuable than a patient who does not? I should think that all the ill are equally important in the eyes of a doctor…
> 
>     My Dear Rung,
> 
> The stars here are beautiful. Of course I cannot tell you where I am--although these letters are precarious enough when taken as a whole, I bend to Soundwave’s insistence that no _single_ letter should be too damning on its own--but I will tell you that the sky is as thick with stellar light here as if a goldsmith had thrown the dust of his forge across the workshop floor. I think perhaps all this running and hiding in the dark and the ruins is nearly at its end. I wish you could have heard the cheering in the mines, when we took them. Starscream should have been born a prince, the way he burns adulation like fuel...
> 
>     Rung,
> 
> I think you will forgive me if I admit that it has been a very long day here aboard this ship. In your last letter you remarked that Luna 2 was waxing into vernal equinox. I can imagine this vividly. Rodion pink beneath the full moon--the view from your office, which you have described to me with such care--your gaze silently unfolding all its ugliness to reveal something beautiful. I should not like you to think of me as a mech who has no desires of his own, for as much as I have wished you here with me and mine, tonight I am distracted by a strange longing to be there with you.

 

 

When Rung had stepped down into the loading docks in Kaon yesterday, he almost expected to be turned away, and he almost had been.

“Ain’t you with the tower bots?” one of the nosier crew members had asked, while the captain authenticated the code that Rung had kept tucked away inside himself for the better part of two solar cycles. “Little thing like you,” the crew member had said, “what’re you doin’ on this side of the planet?”

That _was_ about what Rung had expected. He had the unfortunate lot in life of being a nobody to the somebodies, and an unwelcome interloper to the rest. But eventually the code had validated, and they’d let him onto the scrapper, and then it was all over but the long ride out into contested space.

He still wasn’t entirely sure of this decision. Megatron’s message sat in his memory banks like a hot iron in a scrapheap, threatening to engulf everything around it in fire. _If you ever change your mind_ , it said, the same as the last time he checked it. It had been passed to him on a worryingly scorched datadrive, which he had long ago disposed of.

At times he wished that he had left that first pamphlet in the street where he found it, unopened, unremarkable. But he hadn’t. He’d opened those words with his hungry fingers and found a portrait of himself looking back up at him, someone rendered simultaneously graceful and frightening by the pen of a poet. His spark still shuddered at the memory—how hard his fuel pump had thumped inside his chassis, how the whisper of charge had jumped down his spinal strut.

Curiosity crushed the turbo fox; he went looking for the circle that had produced the drive, and eventually he found it. The old one-eyed bulldozer observing the ragtag rally from the backmost seat had taken one look at Rung, and he had understood.

“You’d be that guy from the _Omega Prime_ bit, eh?” he’d said.

Elsewhere in the room a heavy-set bot pounded the chalkboard with his fist, shouting over his cohort.

“Possibly,” Rung said. “My memory of the incident is somewhat battered.”

There was a clunk and a scramble as several smaller bots toppled the first one and pried the chalk out of his servo, shouting something about the _manifesto._

The bulldozer ignored them. He tilted his head, set down the broken drive he’d been slowly piecing back together with his cumbersome claws, and reached for a ream of hardcopies across the desk. The building itself appeared to be a forgotten educational center, long left to languish in disrepair. The cracked blackboard was a jumble of words in various handwritings, arguments scribbled over arguments.

“Com this frequency,” the bulldozer had said, pushing a scrap of hardcopy into Rung’s servos. “Tell ‘em who you are. I got a feeling somebody up there wants to talk to you.”

He hadn’t. Not right away. He’d gone back to work with the scrap tucked deep inside his compartments, receiving patients and issuing diagnoses like usual, and at strange moments he’d watched his servos opening and closing over his stationary and he had wondered _is this the body that captivated a revolutionary?_

It was the middle of the night cycle when he broke down at last and made the call. The reply came back like they’d been _waiting_ for him, a neat little private frequency with the return address to an off-web inbox.

He’d closed out the program and paced and come back to it, and _still_ , undeniably, it was what it had appeared to be. A letter from Megatron’s personal address. Short—brief and abrupt, and yet—

_It would be the crowning jewel of this humble movement if you would consider lending us your talents, doctor. We are always hungry for mechs of integrity and honor, for strength of spark like I have rarely seen before encountering you._

As he had read that, Rung bit the joints of his servo, almost afraid to hold the message too close to himself. Flattery was pointless, flattery was—it was—

But it had been such a _long_ time since anyone had bothered to even try flattering him. Megatron and he hadn’t even _spoken_. They had hardly spent a fraction of a cycle in the same space. Had Megatron looked him up afterward? Even after—after the whole business with the prison guard, the long imprisonment? Had he _sent_ someone to look into Rung?

He’d replied to the message. _Thank you but no thank you_ , he’d said, _I respect your vision but I cannot condone your methods._ He’d like to say that had been the end of it.

It hadn’t been, of course.

Because he couldn’t stop _replying_ to things. Megatron asked him what he meant by _methods_. Megatron invited him to debate the necessity of tyranny. Megatron asked his opinion on the aria of an opera from several centuries before.

Rung was being _courted_ , he was almost certain of it. It didn’t escape him how rare and fraught it was to receive a single personal communication from the leader of the entire Decepticon movement, let alone a series of them. There he was, in his office overlooking the Boulevard of Swords, flipping through his datebook, with an unread letter from _Megatron_ of _Tarn_ sitting in the back of his queue.

And the trouble was that it was _working_.

Because as soon as Rung would say, _if you dissemble the structure of power with violence, only chaos will remain_ , Megatron would say, _Chaos is an unfortunate but necessary primal state; all stars are born of nebula._

Rung would say, _even if your argument is only rhetorical, a significant portion of your audience will take you at your word_ , and Megatron would say, _then I will need a strong right servo to keep the course, won’t I?_

In the hangar of the Nemesis, countless illicit correspondences later, Megatron received Rung with his arms open, a smile threatening to curve his mouth. His bearing was gravitational, somehow stronger in person than his wanted posters made it out to be. In Maccadam’s that day, Rung had barely perceived him except for a grand shadow in a back corner booth, a cool spot in the bustle. The hangar now was oddly empty of bustle, but then again, the place had begun to quietly empty itself the moment Megatron set foot on the deck.

“I was beginning to think you would never come,” he admitted, his optics glinting with something secret and warm. “What changed your mind?”

A cold ache bloomed at the bottom of Rung’s spark. Rodion, abruptly, seemed as lost to him as an extinguished friend. 

“You were right about what was coming,” he said. “I—the government isn’t interested in reform. They’ve rolled out austerity measures, and with the clampdown in place for so long… the feeling on the surface is grim. People are disappearing.” He reset his vocoder. “They took my practice.”

Megatron’s brow ridge lifted the barest amount. “On what grounds?”

Empty-eyed windows watched him from the files of his memory. It hadn’t taken long to gather his things from the office. There wasn’t much to take. Almost half his life was packed inside himself now, in his own Byzantine compartments.

Rung dug his digits into his faceplate, into the aching place between his eyebrows. “Apparently someone reported me as a sympathizer,” he said. “With what evidence I have no idea. I treat several patients with sympathetic leanings but—”

Rung steadied himself, lifting his chin with a deep in-vent. “The truth is,” he said, “I have nowhere else to go. I thought perhaps you meant it when you said…”

“Of _course_ ,” Megatron purred, and took Rung’s servo between his own.

For a moment, all Rung could feel was the sweet rush of relief. Megatron’s servos were warm and broad, and being held so firmly by them was a strange comfort after the brittle perseverance of the last few days, the dark looks and the naked suspicion of nearly everyone he had encountered.

“Thank you,” he breathed.

There came a shrill little sound—Rung stiffened and scoured the hangar for its source, glancing past several empty transports to rest finally on the door to the interior ship. Someone was standing there, optics blazing, watching him. Their claws had left visible grooves in the metal.

“Who—” he said, even as the figure disappeared entirely, leaving only scored metal behind.

“That would be Starscream, I expect,” Megatron said. “I left him in the middle of one of his little snits, and he does so hate to be ignored. Don’t worry about him, I’ll straighten him out.”

Starscream. Megatron talked often of Starscream— _the Decepticon_ _ideal_ , he had called the mech once, during some lingering late night talk of pre-destiny and ambition. Rung’s mind raced, connecting dots, but what he said was only, “If you insist.”

“I certainly do,” Megatron said, and only then let go of Rung’s servo. “As it happens, you’ve come at an ideal time. I have just the job opening for you.”

Rung sighed in relief. “Certainly,” he said. “What is it? Administrative? I have excellent organizational skills.”

“As a matter of fact,” Megatron said, pressing a firm servo to Rung’s back, “I’d like to make you CMO.”

Stunned, Rung barely noticed that he was being gently herded towards the door.

“Megatron,” he sputtered, “you _know_ I’m not that kind of—and surely you must have a more qualified practitioner to—”

Rung _did_ have a medical degree, of course. When he’d begun practicing psychiatry there had been no real course of study for it, only a lot of scattered research papers by medical students all seeming to approach the problem of the mind from disorganized angles. He certainly had _access_ to general medical downloads through his alma mater, although if they pulled his license along with his practice that might not last long.

“To be frank,” Megatron said, “doctor, we have a dire shortage of medical professionals within our ranks. We have several construction class bots who have been working as back alley hacksaws, some nurses, and quite a few disposable classers who worked at one point or another in a hospital of some kind, but we have almost _no one_ with any real qualification.”

“None?” Rung said, horrified.

Megatron’s optics blazed. “The few medical professionals who haven’t proved spineless functionist lackeys have either been detained or… _dealt_ with, by the powers that be. You—” He leveled his gaze at Rung, “are the first to have escaped.”

“Oh,” Rung said. He ran the math. Even at its smallest estimates, an organization of this size—

“More will come, I think. But regardless of who may or may not join us, I have faith in _you._ In _your_ abilities.” Megatron squeezed his shoulder. “I want you to take the position.”

“I—” but Rung was already cutting several auxiliary mental processes and beginning to unzip his old medical downloads, reintegrating them into his diagnostic protocols. “Everything I have will be sorely out of date,” he warned. “And basic. I’ll try to rip as much from the Nova Point server as I can before I’m ejected, but it still won’t be enough to make me a real physician.”

“Your presence here is already the difference between life and death for many of us.”

Rung cut his optic feed. Whatever processor power he had that wasn’t currently being used to scrape data from his long term archives went into furiously ordering a plan of implementation. He would need to distribute the data packets to everyone, ensure that they were fully integrated, and start weeding the experienced from the inexperienced before standards and practices could become too muddied. He was grateful for the servo against his back—he leant into it and allowed Megatron to direct him wherever they were going, trusting that the bigger mech would take care of things while Rung was otherwise preoccupied.

“I’ll need to meet the staff,” Rung said, his own voice sounding far away to him. “The first priority is pooling our resources, and then establishing a chain of command.”

There was a tug against Rung’s body as Megatron tucked him against his side, guiding him down unseen halls. Rung leaned gratefully into it.

“Of course,” Megatron said. “Let me give you the tour.”

 

 

For several weeks, Starscream observed as Rung made himself right at home in the Decepticon militia. As if he wasn’t some soft-fingered tower mech, with his fancy laboratory alt—whatever the hell it was—and his cultured little accent and his shiny-bright spark absolutely _glittering_ behind that display case of a spark chamber, like he _wanted_ you to touch it.

Starscream wouldn’t trust Primus himself if the old glitch climbed right out of the well of sparks and started handing out alt-exemptions, and he _certainly_ didn’t trust this delicate little headshrink who touched down out of the blue one day and named himself CMO.

 _Look_ at him, wandering around the ship with his spark practically out. It was inappropriate for the fragging workplace was what it was. Did no one else notice this? Was he the only sane mech in this army?

If there was one thing Starscream couldn’t stand, it was being out of the loop.

Megatron’s appointments book was a garbled mess, and Starscream despaired of it. Their glorious leader ran the thing himself these days, ostensibly because they couldn’t spare the manpower for luxuries like personal _secretaries_. Down in the bitter place below his glossa, below his spark, Starscream didn’t believe a word of it. In the early days he had been Megatron’s secretary as well as his engineer, his strategist, and his—

Well, he was still all of those things, except he didn’t have access to the appointment book anymore. Officially. Obviously he left himself a back door into the log, he wasn’t a _newspark_ , but he was fully aware that having his access privileges revoked had been _meant_ to keep him out.

Anyway. The point of it was, there just happened to be a suspicious chunk of today’s planner simply labeled _Rung_ , and that was not going to fly. Whatever the hell Rung had that Megatron wanted, Starscream was determined that he should know about it too. And possibly slide it into his own pocket, if he could.

Starscream tracked Megatron’s signal to a conference room at the far end of the ship, at which point the system informed him that the chamber had been locked from the inside. Starscream grimaced at the notification. Not to worry! What kind of SIC would he be if he didn’t have a master system override in his toolbox? He keyed in the code and fetched a pad from his subspace, arranged his features to look bland and harried, and leaned through the door as it opened.

“My lord,” he started, only _then_ flicking his eyes up from the pad, “did you have—”

The pad slipped out of his servo and clattered to the floor.

Despite the fact that his dripping valve was on open display, Rung only seemed mildly taken aback to find Starscream there, standing in the doorway. With one leg hooked over Megatron’s shoulder, he settled back on his palms as Megatron stiffened in almost palpable rage.

Rung lifted an eyebrow. Deliberately, without turning, Megatron wiped his mouth with the back of his servo.

In that moment Starscream was absolutely certain that if Megatron turned his head someone was going to die, and Starscream did not like his own odds.

“Whoops sorry about that carry on I’ll just be—” Starscream slammed the door button, “—out here, literally anywhere else, thanks, bye!”

Cold condensation breaking out all over the back of his neck, Starscream set off down the corridor at a brisk pace. The exact angle of Rung’s slanted shoulder was burned into his optics; the blue of his spark chamber, the glittering trail of lubricant that strung from his valve to Megatron’s servo. That skinny little spawn of a glitch! Who the pit did he think he was?

 

 

Starscream buried himself in research that shift block. He burned through several favors, back hacked Soundwave’s personnel files, and piggybacked a crawler through someone’s non-regulation entertainment stream just to get back into the Cybertron intraplanetary web. What he found was simultaneously underwhelming and disorienting, an unintelligible mess of data. Rung was _no one_ , and he was _everywhere._ Records of him went back as far as records even existed, and they were completely useless.

It wasn’t until he drifted back through a more recent security footage dump that the first meaningful clue unearthed itself. Starscream absently sipped a cube of half-congealed fuel as he tabbed back and forth through a series of visitations from a couple thousand years before. Hm.

Hmm.

On the ‘con subnet, he found some chatter connecting a psychiatrist who had been hanging around meets in Iacon to the mystery mech from the _Servant Pamphlet._ It certainly sounded like they were describing Rung, although not one of them could seem to get his name right. 

Starscream paused at that. Somebody was _always_ trying to find the illusive Servant, just like they were always trawling around trying to find out who Terminus had been, or how big Megatron’s spike was. On the other servo… Starscream flicked back through the old distributive material until he found the passage in question. It was pretty dry on detail. No paint color, no alt mode, and certainly no name.

Starscream flicked through it again. Well Rung certainly seemed _small_ enough to get tossed around, although why functionist lackeys would treat a scientific class bot like that was an even more irksome mystery. By the time the morning shift had come and gone, Starscream was nothing but nerves and grinding denta as he slammed his datapad into a drawer in his newly assigned officer’s quarters.

The fact that no one had so much as commed him about his earlier indiscretion made his plating itch. Either Megatron was waiting for his most vulnerable moment to drop retribution on him, or the slagger didn’t even _care._

Starscream whirled, kicked the berth, and slapped his comm array to life.

“ _What the pit do you want?”_

“Skywarp,” he said, “I need you to cover for me on the bridge. I’ve got something to _deal_ with.”

“ _Starscream you slag sucker, I just got_ off _shift—”_

“Great,” Starscream said, and cut the call.

He was going to get to the bottom of this or chip a claw trying.

 

 

The CMO quarters were the only officer’s rooms not located on the bridge-adjacent hall. As a matter of fact, they were attached to the medical suite, with an office connecting the private rooms to the medbay. Starscream fed the same master override as before through the lock and let himself inside.

Rung looked up. He was perched on the berth, one leg tucked underneath him, reviewing something on a ‘pad with his ridiculous spectacles folded up on the desk behind him. “Ah,” he said.

He was so _small._ Not in the way that a minibot was small, but in the way that an expensive thing was small, in the way that crystal stemware and high end tech were small. He was slim, unarmed, nothing but essentials. Starscream could snap him in half without even engaging auxiliary systems. How would that look, Starscream considered _—_ could he make it look like an accident?

He could always frame someone else for it. Two ships, one plasma round.

“ _So_ ,” he said, slipping into the room, “do you frag all your bosses, or only the ones who’ll let you ride their canon?”

Rung turned off the datapad and set it down gently at his side. “Hello Starscream,” he said. “I think we _are_ overdue for a talk. Please come in.”

Starscream sneered at him. The door slid closed with a telling hiss.

Rung’s room was more lively than most of the rooms on the Nemesis, by a small degree. There was a small light cascade cast on the far wall, throwing up shades of sea foam and arctic ice. He had set out several model spaceships on the bare shelving unit, the collection still smelling faintly of glue. Out of place among the shiny miniature hulls was some kind of folded hardcopy, its whisper-thin edges crimped into the shape of a glider, or maybe a jet.

Starscream plucked it from the shelf. “What’s this?” he said, examining the thing between his clawtips. “It seems awfully _delicate_. You should be careful with delicate things in a place like this, my dear. They have a tendency to _break._ ”

“It was a gift from a patient,” Rung said. His voice was mild. “We used to fold those to ground his nervous energy. He could make more complicated models than that, but I asked for this one. I like that it can fly.”

Starscream rolled the thing in his fingers. No self propulsion that he could see. It was just hardcopy, flimsy and pink.

“You know, anyone in my position would find your sudden appearance a bit _suspect_ ,” Starscream said. “I did a little research on you… did a bit of poking around… you made an _awful_ lot of visits to the functionist center a few thousand years ago. Enough to make a certain type of mind wonder where your loyalties really lie. It’s awfully convenient that someone like _you_ would want to throw your lot in with the likes of _us._ You’re stepping down a bit in the world. _”_

“You think I’m a plant,” Rung said, with a frown.

“I _thought_ that, for a little while,” Starscream admitted. He tugged the wing of the little flight model. “But then I got to thinking about that _pamphlet_ —yes, I thought you might know about that—and it occurred to me that I may be giving you too much credit. Megatron went after _you,_ didn’t he? I can smell an infatuation at twenty paces.”

For the first time in the conversation, Rung looked discomfited. He shifted, sitting forward, servos folding in his lap.

“I _thought_ so!” Starscream said, baring his denta. “Haha! And I bet I know why. All those revolving door visits to the functionist centers—Megatron always wants whatever his enemies have, the greedy old slagger." Starscream pointed a finger lazily at Rung. "He got you _pre-used,_ didn't he. Really, I wouldn’t have thought he was the type to be that petty, but I guess you’re a bit of a bargain. Two whole bonus functions for the price of one frag.”

Rung climbed carefully to his feet. For a moment Starscream tensed, ready to take on whatever the hell that tiny package could dish out, but Rung made no move to charge him. Instead, he only picked his way across the floor, and when he had come up chassis to chassis with Starscream, he gently pried the flimsy flight model out of the jet’s grip.

“I’m not a toy, you know,” Rung said.

Starscream looked up from the model, and lifted a brow ridge. “Aren’t you?” he said. “A sweet little party toy for senators and councilmech? Basically part of the _furnishings_.”

“Not, I think, that it really matters,” Rung said, “but that’s not quite how it went. If you want to know what happened to me, I don’t mind telling you.”

Starscream paused. He couldn’t get a read on Rung one way or another—it didn’t _feel_ like he was lying, but then, why would he bother telling his rival the truth? Starscream didn’t even have a metaphorical gun to the bot's head. Starscream didn’t have _anything_ , and that was the reason his tanks felt like they were corroding into his internals. He didn’t have _anything_ , and Rung had _everything._

Rung only came up to his collar faring, but he didn’t move as if he was outsized. He reached past Starscream, setting the model down in its place, so close that his chest plate all but scuffed Starscream’s arm. His servo barely brushed Starscream’s hip as he balanced himself, and then he pulled back. Starscream stood as stiff as iron rebar.

“A few thousand years ago, when everyone was required to be classed officially for the census,” Rung said, “I discovered the hard way that I may in fact be the functionist council’s least favorite person ever forged. I was in and out of that place so many times because they were performing _tests_ on me. I think I am personally responsible for setting back the census by at least a half century.”

The wheels—? Starscream looked Rung over again, with newly analytical eyes. He had assumed that glass panel became some kind of lens, maybe for a microscope. But why would a microscope have wheels?

Rung reached into his subspace and rummaged out a little ID card. He flipped it over with a mirthless smile and flashed the block print reading: _ornament._

“I’m not a toy,” he said again, and against the stark wording of the card there couldn’t have been a more loaded sentence.

He flipped the card back around, regarding it thoughtfully.

“Which isn’t to say,” he concluded, “that I didn’t have a few intimately unpleasant experiences while I was up there. But that is neither here nor there. If Megatron knows anything about it, it’s not because I told him. He’s certainly never asked. The fact of the matter is, you’re the first person besides my conference partner to wonder about it.”

Starscream worked his jaw mutely. If this wasn’t about stealing trophies from functionist pricks, then what _could_ it be about? Surely not _sentiment,_ not with _Megatron._

“When you say _intimately unpleasant_ —” Starscream started, before he could think better of it.

Rung tapped the card back into his subspace. “You know how it is,” he said. “For some people it’s not enough that you say _yes sir_ , they want you to kneel while you’re doing it.”

For the first time since Rung showed up in the hangar, all sleek and bright and sharp-eyed, Starscream was struck hard by an echo of the grim resolve that had once inspired a love letter disguised as a polemic. His mouth curled down. His fuel pump lurched.

“I’m not a threat to your position here,” Rung went on, as if that was a normal thing to say without preamble. “I’m not staying forever. I’d like to get the medical staff trained up to the best of my ability, and then of course I’ll be available to take patients if any of your people are having trouble coping with the stress of the political climate. But I’ve never agreed with Decepticon methods, and I can’t in good conscience take the brand while you continue to consider _assassination_ a viable method of political activism.”

Starscream stood absolutely silent for a moment too long. Then he clapped a servo to his mouth, muffling a dry rasp of laughter.

“My _dear_ doctor,” he said, “do you really think he’ll ever let you leave now that you’re here?”

A flicker of something almost wary passed over Rung’s expressive faceplate. “I have nothing to hold hostage,” he said.

“Except your life, except your _body_ ,” Starscream countered.

Rung favored him with a wry half smile. “Oh, is that all?”

Starscream’s plating flared, venting furious steam. “You naïve little fool, do you think you’re just going to get up and walk out of here in one piece?”

Rung turned away from him and went back to the berth, letting a servo rest on its edge lightly. “Is that naïve?” The servo lifted, curling towards his chassis. “I’ve been nothing but honest with him from the start.”

“Well he hasn’t been honest with _you_ ,” Starscream said, “if he let you believe that mattered! Trust me, he’ll find a way to reel you back in. There’s always _something_ with him. And he’s sure got _your_ number.”

“Do you think he would treat his friend that way?”

“ _Friend_?” Starscream laughed, pressing two of his digits to his faceplate. “You’re not his _friend!_ You’re his _frag_ toy. You’re his minion at worst, his trophy at best. What, you think he loves you because he licked his transfluid out of your valve after he split you open? Just because he doesn’t do that for the rest of us, you think you’re something special? You think you _matter?”_

The tenderness of that forbidden moment turned his tanks. The memory wouldn’t fade—it terrified him what he might have seen if he had looked up a moment earlier, if he had seen Megatron’s face instead of Rung’s. The blazing reactor of the movement was supposed to be as pitiless and untouchable as a star, the spark that had them all caught in its gravity, and it was bearable—it was bearable—

Rung levered himself up onto the berth and perched there, watching Starscream with his uncannily off-blue optics.

“I don’t belong to him, you know,” Rung said. And then, his expression softening in some indescribable way— “Neither do you.”

“He has you by the spark!” Starscream spit. “From the moment he got his spike inside you, this place owned you!”

“I don’t think we’re really talking about me,” Rung said.

Starscream slammed his fist into the wall with a _crack_. “Yes we are!”

For a moment he only vented in mute fury, coolant bubbling in his lines. His visual centers were glitching, sending him fried lagging images of Rung’s emotionless blue gaze. And then, he relaxed. “But it’s _alright_ ,” he said, letting his fist fall open at his side. He rolled his neck, loosening up the cables of his protoform. “It’s alright, because Megatron isn’t the only person here you can rely on.”

Rung lifted a brow. “He isn’t?”

“Change is coming,” Starscream remarked, running the wicked tip of a digit over Rung’s meager possessions. “Megatron’s day at the head of this movement is coming to an end. And then, _I’ll_ be the one you’re spreading your legs for.”

Rung only cocked his head. “Is that what you want?”

“What the pit is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” Rung said, evenly, “do you actually want me, or are you just angry he has something you don’t?”

It was a testament to how out of sorts the night had left him that Starscream couldn’t even formulate an answer for a moment.

The plate glass of Rung’s spark chamber blazed. The articulation of his joints was so fine, the line of his jaw so sharp. He couldn’t blame Megatron for _wanting_ a taste.

“Can’t it be both?” Starscream said, bitterly. He hated telling people the truth. They never believed him.

Right— _right_. What was he actually doing here? Seducing someone for political capital? He did that often enough, he knew how to do that.

He crossed the room at a smooth predatory pace, thrusters clicking against the floor. Rung made no move to escape him, only tilting his head with interest as Starscream drew closer. There was a faint smell of patching mesh, antiseptic, the lingering tang of the medical bay—something at once soothing and unnerving.

“Think about it,” Starscream said, letting a clawtip drag over the berth, approaching Rung klik by drawn out klik. “I would make a _much_ better liege than Megatron. Whatever that brute does to you, I can do it ten times sweeter. I’m amenable to _compromise_ , you know. I listen to _advice_. Stay here under me, and I’ll give you the room you need to really make something of yourself. You support me, and I’ll… support… you.”

His clawtips walked once, twice, three times, and suddenly they had slipped into the seam of Rung’s hip, brushing the delicate protoform beneath. The light beneath Rung’s spark panel gave a flare, but other than that, he sat perfectly still.

“Come on,” Starscream cajoled, “don’t you want to be on the winning side?”

“If I say no, will you stop?”

Starscream curled his lip. “I’m not an _animal,_ ” he said.

Rung considered him for a long minute, long enough that Starscream started to worry that he needed to disengage and approach this problem from a new angle. But then Rung lifted his servo and gently touched the face looming over his, fingers warm and delicate.

“He has you wound terribly tight, doesn’t he?” Rung murmured, his palm following the curve of Starscream’s faceplate. “But that’s the problem with winding a spring. Sooner or later, it can’t take the tension anymore.”

“Stop pretending like you know anything about me,” Starscream hissed.

Rung swung his legs up onto the berth and lay back, his servos settling lightly against his chestplates. The sight of his delicate bright fingers splayed on either side of his humming spark chamber sent a jolt of heat through Starscream’s wiring, a fizzle of charge down his spinal strut. He leaned in closer, wings shuddering.

Rung’s servos pushed down over the curve of his chest plate, over his abdomen, and came to rest over his modesty panel. His optics dimmed as his fingertips stroked the seams of his interface panel, his chin tipped back the slightest bit.

“This is how I like to be touched,” Rung said, and spread his thighs apart on the berth.

The modesty cover slid back under Rung’s servos. With deliberate fingers, he touched either side of his plump valve and parted it, revealing the twitching and glistening inner mesh. Starscream shifted unconsciously, his own valve giving a deep, hard clench inside of him.

Rung drew a fingertip through the slickness inside himself, shuddering a little when he bumped his anterior node. “If you would still like to,” he said, “I consent. On the condition that you stay the rest of the shift when you’re finished with me. I don’t think you’ve recharged at all since I last saw you.”

Starscream stared at him. The throbbing heat behind his own panels slowly drowned out the screaming alerts at the back of his processor reminding him that sleeping near _anyone_ , let alone someone who had _happily let Megatron eat them out,_ was asking for a plasma blast in the spark. What could a thing like Rung really do to him?

A smirk broke out across Starscream’s faceplate.

He grabbed hold of Rung’s hips and dragged him closer, forcing knees to fold against his chassis. “What’s wrong,” he said, giving the thighs a long leisurely stroke. “Our glorious master doesn’t give you as much of his time as you’d like? Is your berth cold, pet?”

Rung shot him a sidelong look, but with his bent thighs and the flickering light of his anterior node glinting off his slickness, it wasn’t particularly compelling. Starscream initiated interface protocols, retracting the cover over his array and allowing his spike to pressurize at long, lovely last.

He circled the rim of Rung’s spike housing with one claw, but it gave no sign of responding. He drew back.

“Would you like to be spiked?” Starscream asked. He ran his palms down Rung’s thighs and up his frame, with the same slow strokes that Rung used on himself. “I live to serve, you know. Only the best for my master’s favorite.”

“Does being petty turn you on?” Rung replied, with a vaguely amused expression.

Starscream flattened his servo against the crackling glass, leaning with just enough of his weight to hold Rung inescapably against the berth. “Does being _used_ turn you on?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Rung said, although his charge snapped and sparked under Starscream’s fingers. “I enjoy giving people what they need.”

Rung’s node flickered once and then blazed to hungry life as Starscream rolled it between his fingers. “Heh,” he said, when Rung jolted. “You think I need anything from _you?”_

Rung’s mouth had come open, intake venting air to the systems that seethed under his plating. Starscream could feel the heat of him from here, and he grinned. How _hot_ that little valve was going to be. The tip of his spike smeared prefluid against the edge of the berth, just thinking about it. He was going to sink into that like an oil bath.

Rung pushed his hips up into Starscream’s touch, all but begging to be taken. His plating gave a soft creak under the strain of his rising temperature. Starscream curled his fingers through the mess of lubricant spilling out of Rung’s valve and worked his wet fingers over the blazing node, luxuriating in the zip of charge that arced into him.

Rung arched up off the berth, the thinnest moan forcing its way out of his mouth. Spark in his throat, Starscream slammed him back down again.

“How are you so _pretty_ ,” Starscream snarled.

At that, Rung actually turned his head away, every biolight on his body flushing with charge. His servo came up to press against his mouth, knuckles pressing lips.

“Normally,” he said, behind the mask of his fingers, “compliments aren’t framed as accusations, Starscream.”

“Be quiet while I’m seducing you,” Starscream grumbled, and pushed two fingers into the searing clench of Rung’s valve.

He moved carefully, thumb against node as his fingers worked in and out. He was mindful that there was only so much he could do with the tapered shape of his digits; his claws were more suited to coaxing screams than moans from their victims. But Rung gave a series of soft encouraging noises, his frame sighing with the rhythm of slow pressure, and his gentle responsiveness whet the appetite of something low and dark and hungry. It had been a long time since anyone Starscream liaisoned with had wanted anything but to get housing-deep inside him the second his interface array onlined. That was the price you paid for trading favors with decepticons—everyone wanted to feel like they were on top. But Starscream was very good at letting other people think they were in control.

“Do you mind if I touch you?” Rung asked.

Starscream paused, fingers buried deep in soft, throbbing mesh. What kind of a question was that?

“Who am I to deny you a handful of this incredible chassis?” he said, at last, and rolled his shoulders a little, letting the whole impressive figure of himself show off a bit. He knew he looked good—enough bulk to whisper _power_ , paired down enough to scream _speed_. He’d spent ages and ages getting this frame the way he wanted it, never quite satisfied, always hunting the next upgrade. When people looked at him he wanted them to _know_ what he was, he wanted them to see _Starscream,_ not model 1 seeker 345/500. 

Rung reached up and touched the edge of Starscream’s chest plate. “Is this alright?” he asked.

A scowl flickered across Starscream’s mouth. “Just do what you want, you don’t have to ask,” he said. And then, hesitating, he added, “Avoid the ailerons. They’re sensitive, people without wings don’t get it.”

Rung hummed in agreement, and went on gently mapping everything but the wings. When the steady tingle of his touch grew too much to bear, Starscream pulled his fingers from the warm hollow of Rung and shook out his joints.

“Keep your legs open for me,” he said, flicking Rung’s node with a clawtip. The smaller bot gave a start, a brief sharp sound popping in his vocoder.

Starscream grabbed Rung by the hips again and pulled him onto his spike in one swift, deliberate movement. Pleasure shook the links of his spinal strut, racing up through him like lightning clawing up to meet the sky.

“ _Oh_ ,” Rung said, optics pouring light.

Starscream bared his denta and shivered with delight. That was it, that was _it_ , molten hot and slippery and perfectly giving for him. This was the kind of luxury Starscream _deserved_. The crown, the kingdom, the fame. Someday when this was all _his_ , all the glory and the power and the silky ripple of Rung’s valve, Primus that was going to be a good day.

“ _Excellent_ ,” he hissed. “You are _absolutely_ worth the trouble of killing a king.”

To come home to this—to pull Rung into his lap and relax, without looking over his shoulder, without the hunger itching under his plates—he couldn’t think of a better way to rule the world. Returning to this, to Rung’s soft voice and gentle fingers, would make all of it worth it. Oh, he _would_ be a pretty prize, yes.

Rung’s optics flickered. “Do you think you can inherit me?”

Starscream licked his lips. “If he was good enough for you, I _certainly_ am.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Rung said. “None of this works like that.”

Starscream drew out of Rung’s body in a long, lazy stroke, the tip of his spike catching mesh and bobbing free. A bubble of prefluid dripped against Rung’s node. “Let’s see if I can’t change your mind,” he said, and drove back in.

The whole array of interior nodes rolled and caught against Starscream’s spike, emitting sizzles of charge underneath the assault. A long, desperate moan split the air between them. Rung’s servos scrabbled at the berth, trying to get leverage as Starscream thrust into him.

“You’re big,” Rung managed, vocoder spitting static at the edges.

“You’re small,” Starscream countered.

Rung flexed his internals, a moment of blinding sweet pressure bearing down on Starscream before it dispersed. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” Rung allowed. “Be careful. I’m not breakable, but I can break.”

It was— _odd_ , to hear someone admit that so frankly. Starscream rocked into him, watching the plump mesh swallow his spike, and wondered if he was being _trusted_ here. Wouldn’t that be a novelty. Maybe someone like Rung had no choice but to trust one person or another, to get along in the world. And if you lived like that, why _not_ aim for the top?

Well. Megatron was strong, but Starscream was the capable one. Time would show that much.

Starscream hauled one of Rung’s legs up on his hip. “How about _that,_ ” Starscream said, and kneaded Rung’s anterior node.

Rung let out a strained _mmmmnn_ , twisting his head away. Savage satisfaction sliced through Starscream’s tanks, keen as a knife.

Their lights flickered in the half-dark. Starscream forced himself to slow down from the usual hellblaze of a pace he defaulted to in the berthroom. Leisurely but relentless, he slammed home against Rung’s ceiling node again and again, until Rung was nothing but appreciative humming and strutless compliance. Steam from both of their vents thickened the air.

Bent down close over him like this, hips against hips, Starscream was struck all over again by the shape of Rung, by the easiness of his being, by the warmth with which he stroked Starscream’s shoulders even as his glass plating spit sparks madly. It was disorientingly gentle. In the fragmenting lines of his thought processes, it was becoming less clear who exactly was seducing whom. Although Starscream had made the first move, although he had offered his sample of services with schemes already fomenting in his longterm analytic processor—he felt off balance.

Rung coaxed Starscream deeper into himself as if he too was trying to pry some vulnerable thing free, to make some offer of his own, to display some tempting service—

“Rung,” Starscream muttered, as if the word itself had any secret insight into the living mech beneath him.

Rung seized up, valve clenching wildly. His grip tightened. 

“Will you,” he said, “will you say that—again?”

“What, your designation?” Starscream glanced down at him, thoughtfully, and worked his fingers into a transformation seam. “ _Rung_ ,” he said, and watched as something came unraveled in Rung, a tension that until that moment had been invisible and imperceptible.

A smirk pulled at Starscream’s mouth. “Doesn’t Megatron call you by your name?”

“He does,” Rung panted. “Most - most people don’t.”

Something unpleasant lanced through Starscream’s spark, black as tar, before smugness overtook it ruthlessly. “Oh they _don’t,_ do they,” he said. “Well, I guarantee you, your designation is the last thing I’ll forget after a rendezvous like this, _Rung_.”

Rung stiffened, and then he grabbed hold of Starscream’s shoulder and pulled himself upright, throwing his arms around Starscream’s neck. The decepticon froze, for a moment unsure whether Rung was about to go for the throat or what. But Rung only surged against him, scraping their chestplates as he hooked his legs behind Starscream.

His mouth was—very close. Very, very much within reach, now.

“Alright,” Rung said, gripping the back of Starscream’s helm in one hand. “Let’s pretend that’s true.”

Despite the fact that he was buried inside of and significantly bigger than Rung, Starscream experienced the disorienting sensation of having lost control of the situation.

Rung kissed him, and Starscream let him do it.

 

 

The very air of the CMO quarters tasted, when Starscream opened his mouth to in-vent, of ozone and steam. He felt a little twitchy about the fact that Rung had slung an arm and a leg over his frame. He suspected that Rung was doing it specifically to hold him in place, even though if Starscream _had_ wanted to get up and leave, no amount of loose limbs would have stopped him. But he did grudgingly respect that Rung hadn't entirely trusted him to keep to the terms of their initial agreement.

Rung’s servo drifted across turbines, reaching for something. He found Starscream’s own servo where it was resting against his middle and took hold of it. The deep-wired joints twitched as Rung stroked over them.

“You’re very sharp,” he said. “Sharp enough, I hope, to keep up with a deadly game like the one you’re playing. I wouldn’t like to be your enemy.”

“What would you _like_ to be?” Starscream sneered.

The smile that cracked Rung’s lips was entirely too knowing. “Well I think that’s entirely up to you.”

Starscream frowned.

“Sooner or later I’m leaving,” Rung said. “I am. And when I go, I want you to consider coming with me. Whatever it is you think you can get—whatever it is you’re after—you’re not going to find it here.”

“So the free room and board isn’t doing it for you, hm?” Starscream said. “How about the unlimited complimentary spike? Not the level of luxury you’re accustomed to?”

Rung kneaded his thumb into the palm of Starscream’s servo, easing the tightness of the joints and wires. “I think you can judge a person fairly well by how they treat their subordinates,” he said, as claws twitched in relief under his attention. “I’m not… happy, with what I’m seeing here.”

“What, Mighty Megatron swaggering around like he came fresh out of the arena, pretending he knows the first fragging thing about running an army?”

“I don’t like that it’s an army at all,” Rung said. “But no, that’s not—no. I already knew that he had a powerful personality. What I don’t like is the way he has you wound up.”

“He doesn’t have me _wound up_ ,” Starscream retorted. “I can wind myself up just fine without his help!” Then he grimaced. “Wait, no…”

There was a faint breath of movement, like Rung was laughing silently against his side. Starscream made a sour face at the ceiling.

“You do know he dotes on you,” Rung said, once the silent convulsions had eased off. “He’s viciously proud of your advancement through the ranks.”

Starscream ripped his servo out of Rung’s grip. “Megatron doesn’t give a damn about me or anyone else,” he said. “All he cares about is being the last body at the top of the pile.”

Rung lifted his head. “That,” he said. “I don’t like that he lets you think that. It’s one thing to not care about someone, but it’s another thing entirely, deliberately encouraging someone to think you don’t care about them when you do. I’m not sure what game he’s playing at.”

“Stop talking about him,” Starscream ground out. Blindly, he grabbed hold of Rung’s aft and squeezed the smaller bot against himself. “ _I’m_ the one who just fragged the living spark out of you. Talk about me, if you _must_ talk about something.”

Rung gave another silent laugh, knuckles pressing against his lips. His warmth slowly seeped into everything he touched, all his heat as easily dispersed as produced.

“Ah, Commander,” he sighed. “I hope you’re one of the ones who remember.”

Across the room, still vibrant even in the half-dark, the flimsy flight model sat pink among the dust.

**Author's Note:**

> [In a staff meeting on the Nemesis]  
> Starscream: _Thank_ you Rung. At least someone here listens to reason. And to think I originally considered terminating you!  
> Rung: :/  
> Megatron: >:/  
> Starscream: oh relax, he's still here, isn't he?


End file.
